Tiberium Letters

Part Thirteen

By Dwayne MacInnes

Combat resumed shortly after this. I tried to remain out of reach of the stone demon and still block whatever Brunis and Morgan threw at me. The lightning blasts flew through the air like some kind of AC/DC concert.

In case you have never had that experience, before the Alteration College and the Diviner College at the Arcane University, there is a get together once a year in Imperial City for a concert. The music is great. However, the lightshow at the AC/DC concert you cannot miss and I mean that literally. You can be in any neighborhood, in a surrounding district, or even in the village. You can see the lightning and colored flashes shooting into the sky.

Anyway, as I was relating, lightning was shooting back and forth and both the stone demon and Brunis had one object in mind and that was me. I did learn a couple of important things in this exchange. First is that it is impossible to dodge lightning. It is extremely fast. Secondly, I do not need to block the blasts with my shield.

What no one has ever chronicled about my shield, Spell-eater, is that merely having it on your person protects you from hostile magic. Imagine everyone's surprise when the stone demon fired off a blast and hit me square in the back and the bolt fizzled away into nothing. I can assure you no one was more surprised that I was.

Again all combat paused. However, this time I was the one smiling. Sure, the advantage was still in Morgan and Brunis's favor. After all, I still had the stone demon at my back. However, my shield nullified the effect of magic.

Captain Morgan took the initiative and restarted the melee by charging at me. However, it was not quite what he had anticipated. As the guardsman flew at me with his sword flashing in the moonlight, I simply stepped to my right and tripped the captain as he ran harmlessly by. I should not say harmlessly because he had the misfortune of colliding with the stone demon.

There is one other thing about stone demons I forgot to mention. They are extremely stupid. I mean there simply is no other denizen of the netherworld that is literally as dumb as a box of rocks. Not iron demons, not imps, I mean nothing.

Sadly, for Morgan the demon felt that the captain was attacking it. Even sadder for the captain was that he did not have a shield to protect him from the electric bolts. Still even sadder was that all the steel the captain wore only made things worse.

The stone demon fired off a blast of electricity at the poor captain. The lightning literally fried the captain to a blacken crisp. Steam and smoke poured out of his armor before his blackened sword clattered upon the stone floor followed shortly thereafter by the recently deceased captain of the guard.

While this was happening, I flipped my short sword in the air, grabbed it by the blade, and in one fluid motion threw it at Brunis. It is unwise to throw away one's only weapon unless of course it is in a time of desperation. Desperate the times certainly were.

I watched as if time had slowed as the short sword tumbled end over end flying towards Brunis. I watched the mage slowly recognize what was happening, the surprise break out upon his face, and his attempt to try to turn. However, before he could turn completely around the short sword found his chest and buried itself up to the hilt.

There was a puff of smoke as the stone demon dematerialized behind me. Simultaneously, the mage collapsed upon the flagstones in dead heap. I slowly walked toward the mage. Slowly was the only speed I had available at the time as the adrenaline started to wear off. I was completely exhausted.

It took some effort but I was able to tug my short sword out of Brunis's carcass. I was just going to leave him there when a thought occurred to me. I ran over to Morgan's still smoking and disgustingly smelling body and grabbed his long sword. I returned to Brunis and placed the long sword into his wound. Now, if anyone came upon the bodies it looked like a falling out between wizard and warrior.

Unfortunately, that meant I would have to leave the lightning staff still clutched in Brunis's dead hand. But, I figured no one really knew what Brunis carried on his person so I searched him. I found a couple of rings, two keys, fifty Gold Eagles and a small object that resembled a green icicle about three inches long.

There was no way I was going to return to the barbequed guard and search his remains. I figured all the gold and silver he may have had on him would have melted and fused with everything else in one nasty mess. I could still hear the sizzling and popping of the cooked Morgan.

With all the lightning flashing, I figured I had a limited amount of time left. I ran into the room that Morgan and Brunis came out. Inside the room were a bunk, a table, and a chest. It appeared the wizard would occasionally sleep here. The ceiling was still whole above. Further, the door still opened and closed on its hinges on the doorframe. In this case, it was open.

I quickly searched the chest. One of the keys I found on Brunis's body opened it with a click (I learned later that the other key was to the castle, so I kept it). Inside I found a bundle of papers.